


how you fall apart.

by tobeconvincedoflove



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam-Centric, Forced Prostitution, Gen, Hospitals, So There's That?, blue is a nurse, but adam's underage and yeah, but for once nothing is explicit, he's not doing so well, hurt little comfort, im gonna shut up now, ooooh boy this is dark, there is no romantic pynch because adam is underage, this does nothing to help you with how this is going to go, this the don't listen to songs and write fic fic, uh, yeah there's no explicit non con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 15:57:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15732693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tobeconvincedoflove/pseuds/tobeconvincedoflove
Summary: The day Adam turns sixteen is the day things start to fall apart.





	how you fall apart.

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: non-con, forced prostitution, medical things (but none are actually v explicit for once)
> 
> okay so yeah i'm not going to pretend this isn't dark. but pls read?

The day Adam turns sixteen is when things start to fall apart. 

It isn’t great, from the moment he wakes up. The guy he was with the night before had been rough. Dave had dropped him at the normal corner in the shit part of the city and Adam had stood there and waited. The guy in the third floor apartment across from the alley had watched him, like he always fucking does, and Adam had gotten into a Benz when it had pulled up. But he didn’t just want a fuck, and he left Adam bleeding in a different fucking neighborhood all together. 

Adam knows from the second he wakes up to the cracked and dirty ceiling of his uncle’s apartment that he’s not going to be able to go to the free clinic with this. His legs ache, almost collapse, when he goes to stand, and he barely makes it to the shitty bathroom counter to look at the damage. 

His jaw is definitely cracked, maybe broken. His lip is split, bruised and puffy, and the cut through his eyebrow is still bleeding sluggishly. Fuck. Dave is going to be pissed. 

Adam looks around, from the floor scattered with wrappers and bottles and clothes and gross shit that Adam tries not to think about. If Dave is here, he’s fucked. There’s no way he’ll let him out like this, no way he’ll let him go to the doctor when it could get back to him. Doesn’t fucking matter what. A dumb hooker isn’t worth the investigation. 

But Adam doesn’t see him. Doesn’t hear him. 

Adam is out the apartment before he can lose his nerve. It’s warm but raining, and Adam holds his sweatshirt close to his chest like it’s going to protect him if he gets caught. He’s making a story up, for why his face is beat to shit. Door isn’t going to work. Railing might. 

The waiting room of the ER is bright, the fluorescent bulbs making Adam’s headache. He feels like he’s under a microscope, nurses whispering as Adam tries to fill out forms accurate enough to fix whatever the fuck is going on but not accurate enough to make the nurses meddle. He’s so fucked if they don’t buy it.

He should just leave. 

A nurse calls his name. She’s a small thing, a good foot shorter than Adam, but her wild blue and black and purple hair is short and held back with an impossible number of clips, and Adam knows he’s fucked. She was there, about a year ago, when Adam had his lip stitched together. 

He has to bite down on his tongue to stop himself from crying. 

She doesn’t give any indication that she remembers Adam, and he thinks he looks so fucking different. He was barely taller than her then, probably twenty pounds heavier than he is now. When she gestures to the exam table and grabs Adam’s clipboard, Adam looks down at his scuffed shoes. 

“Oh, you’re Adam _Johnson_ this time,” the nurse says dryly, and Adam’s head snaps up. “You’re not very creative with fake names.” 

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. 

“I’m not mad, but I am concerned,” she says. “Do you remember me? You had your lip stitched a while back,” she says, putting the clipboard down and moving to examine Adam’s face. 

“Yes.” Adam’s voice is hoarse, wrecked. “What’s your name again, sorry?” 

“Blue,” she says, moving backwards. “Adam, you know I’m going to have to ask you how you got these injuries.” 

“I got mugged,” Adam says. “Nothing more to it.” 

“Hmm.” Blue’s hands are busy, looking down at the medical form. “You live with your uncle? There’s no address.” 

“We’re movin’,” Adam responds, feels the blood draining from his face. 

“Oh.” Adam knows that’s not in response to what he actually said. “It’s your birthday.” 

“It’s not a big deal. Look, is my jaw okay?” His hands fidget in his lap, long digits seeming almost comically large in comparison to his narrow wrist and forearm. 

“Let me look.” The rest of the preliminary exam is quiet. When she’s done, Blue just sighs. Her eyes are so dark, and Adam can barely bring himself to make eye contact when she draws away from his face. He can feel the anxiety twisting his gut and scraping his insides raw, because if Dave fucking finds out Adam is dead. He’s actually dead. “I’m going to talk to a doctor. I’m going to give you another chance, Adam. Who hurt you?” 

“I told you. A mugger. I didn’t see their face,” Adam says, and Blue just sighs again. 

She leaves the room, and then there’s a doctor who takes a look at his jaw and cleans up the cut on his lip and Blue comes back to talk to him on the side and then she’s gone again. It’s getting later, and Adam needs to leave if he doesn’t want to raise suspicion at home. 

The doctor leaves, but he says Adam can’t isn’t finished just yet. Adam sits, twists his hands together and swings his legs back and forth and tries not to let his brain spiral. It’s already two p.m. If he’s later than five Dave is going to fucking know where’s he’s been, and then it’s going to be so much worse. Then all of his money goes back to the fucking trailer. Then Adam can’t work. Then he’s gotta face Dave. 

Blue enters the room. There’s a cop with her. He’s in plainclothes, but Adam can see the badge swinging across his shirt and he gets ready to bolt. 

Her hands reach out to stop him, but Adam makes it to the hallway and almost back to the waiting room, to the doors. He can hear voices yelling after him but it doesn’t fucking matter until there’s a dark, tall mass in front of him that grips Adam by the shoulders and holds on tight. Adam spins out of the stranger’s grip for one second before the arms are around his stomach and Adam can’t free himself from those. Adam’s vision is blurry and he can hear his own heartbeat in his ears and by the time he’s too tired to continue fighting, Blue and the cop are back in front of him. He doesn’t want to look at the stranger that caught him, even as he helps march Adam into a room. 

“Thanks, Ronan,” he hears Blue say as the door shuts, and Adam catches one glimpse of the guy’s face. It’s angular, made harsher by the buzzed hair, and he looks angry and threatening and Adam knows he didn’t stand a fucking chance. He doesn’t even fucking work here. He lives in a third story apartment, in the shit part of town. He knows what Adam is.

It doesn’t matter how it happened. Adam is in a room with a cop. If this gets back to Dave, the next thing the stupid fucking police are going to find is Adam’s body in a dumpster. 

“I just want to talk to you, Adam,” the cop says, sits with his chair blocking the door. Adam stays standing, arms wrapped around himself like that can somehow protect him. 

“I don’t want to talk,” Adam responds. 

“We’re not going to let anyone hurt you,” the cop starts, and Adam freezes. The cops have always been fucking useless. They’ve been useless ever since it was his dad beating the shit out of him. Adam’s mom sent him to his brother because she thought it was going to be worse if he stayed, after Robert Parrish lost his job. What a fucking joke. They just needed the fucking money. Doesn’t matter how Adam gets it. 

“That’s a fucking joke,” Adam chokes out. 

“We can keep you safe. I promise. Please just sit down. Hear me out,” he says, and Adam finds himself sitting back up on the exam table. He doesn’t understand why the cop is using such a gentle voice; if they talked to _Ronan_ , they’d know Adam Parrish is a whore. 

“You don’t know shit.” Adam tries to put some bite behind his voice, but he can’t seem to do it. His hands are trembling, entire body, really. 

“We want to help you. We know your name is Adam Parrish. We know that someone has been hurting you. I just need to know who you’re working for,” the cop says, and Adam’s breath freezes inside of his lungs, dropping back down to pierce the bottom and fill his lungs with blood instead. 

“I can’t,” Adam says, which isn’t what he wanted to say. He wanted to say that he’s not working for anyone. He’s fucking this up so badly. 

“Look, we have some evidence on Dave—”

“I don’t know a Dave,” Adam says before he can even finish.

“Do you know what he’s done?” The cop pulls out a folder, and then there are pictures of mutilated bodies and ruined buildings and so much other shit that Adam ends up dry heaving into a stupid trash can. “We need to bring him in. If you just tell us the truth, we can stop all of this. He won’t hurt you again.”

Adam doesn’t know if this guy is talking to Adam like he’s worth something just because he wants Adam to fold, but he can’t. It this guy knows as much as he fucking thinks he does, then he knows that nothing is going to keep Adam safe. 

So when he finally lets Adam go, hands him his business card in case he changes his mind, Adam walks right past Blue and Ronan, chatting with the receptionists and looking at him with sad eyes, and he throws the card in the trash.

He’s not dumb enough to be caught with that.

:: ::

Adam makes eye contact with Ronan as he gets into a sleek red car that night. His face is no more beat to hell than it had been that morning, but Dave had been pissy that he had disappeared, and he’d taken more of the cut for himself than normal, sending the rest to his parents.

It’s fucked, and Adam knows it’s so Adam can never fucking leave. It’s not like he’s had a shot. He’s fucked without an education. Fucked without a place to live. Fucked without Dave to steal from. 

It’s raining tonight. Adam thinks about the rain washing away the bruises, gently wiping the salt and sweat and iron from his face, from his gnarled hands, fresh and untainted and cold and clear and clean. He wants to be in the river, to let the water wash onto him and over him and let him float and float until it’s just waves and rain and grey skies, until he can feel nothing else but the water. He thinks it would be softer than the car seat as it digs into his back. The water would be gentle where the hands are rough, waves gently guiding instead of digging and pressing and hurting. He thinks he wouldn’t mind becoming the water, dissolving into something purer than he is.

:: ::

Adam has almost forgotten all about Ronan and Blue when he meets Gansey. It’s colder now, ground littered with brown and crumbled and dead leaves. Adam is in his warmest coat, a cheap corduroy thing fleeced on the inside, and he can feel his body trembling despite at all.

He’s in the passenger seat of Dave’s car, and Dave’s knuckles might be red and bloody but Adam’s face is a hell of a lot worse. 

“I don’t want to see you until tomorrow,” he says before Adam is on the corner. Adam barely manages to sit on the pavement before his legs give out, sore and tired and shaking. He knows he’s not going to get any fucking customers looking like this, knows he can’t go home for a few days, until he has some money to show for himself. 

“Hey!” a voice calls, and before Adam realizes what’s happening there’s someone crouching in front of him. “Are you alright?” The stranger’s face is kind; he’s wearing a ridiculously expensive suit for the area of town, but his brown eyes are warm and his hair is light and soft and fluffy and his glasses are large and make his whole face look softer.

“I’m fine,” Adam croaks out, but the man doesn’t leave. He’s young, can’t be more than twenty-six years old. 

“No you’re not.” Still, the man’s voice, face are impossibly gentle. “Your cheek is bleeding. Shit, my friend lives just over there in that building. Let me call him for help.” Before Adam can stop him, he moves farther away, voice low and hushed on the phone. Adam lets the world spin away for a while. His cheek and jaw and ribs are aching, and he knows at least one of his eyes is going to be black in a few minutes. If he thinks too hard he’s going to have to face that it’s going to be much worse than a few punches if someone sees him talking to someone like this. Unless he can pass him off as a client. 

“Gansey, meet Adam.” Adam’s head snaps up, makes eye contact with Ronan-from-the-waiting-room. 

“Mother _fuck_.” Adam’s voice is harsh. He stands, moves to leave, but Ronan grabs Adam’s forearm, doesn’t let go when Adam winces at the contact on fresh bruises. 

“You know him? Ronan, he’s clearly hurt,” Gansey says, and Adam tries again to leave, but Ronan just spins him around. “I’m sorry, Adam. I had no idea you were… acquainted with Ronan.” 

“We going to keep doing this out here?” Ronan asks. “Or will your pimp beat the shit out of you again if we do?” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Adam says, but he lets Ronan lead him to his building. 

“Playing dumb isn’t a good look for you,” Ronan shoots back, and even though Gansey sounds scandalized at the entire thing, he doesn’t say anything yet. “I don’t think Blue is on shift right now, if you’ve been trying to avoid a repeat of the summer.” 

“I told you, I’m fine,” Adam says, and Ronan’s grey eyes just bore into Adam. 

“Ronan, you can’t just accuse people of—” Gansey finally gets out. 

“Bigger fish to fry right now, Dick,” Ronan says, when they’re finally in his shithole of an apartment. Not that Adam can judge, but it’s the principle of it. “You wanna call your girlfriend to get this idiot some first aid?” 

“No,” Adam starts, tries to hold his ground even as Ronan whips around. “I don’t need the fucking cops on my back again.” 

“What is going on?” Gansey asks. “Adam, please sit down. I’ll go call Blue.” 

“No, you can’t—” Adam hears his own breath in his ears. He’s halfway to the door until Ronan blocks it. “We’re not doing this again.” 

“Yeah we are. You’re beat to hell. Maybe the cops should be involved,” Ronan says, and Adam bolts the other way, towards the fire escape. Ronan is faster. “Jesus, if I make Blue promise not to call the cops will you chill the fuck out? We just want you to get some medical help, man.” 

Adam nods.

He sits on the edge of his couch cushion, the one closest to the door. Ronan had pulled Gansey into his bedroom, and though Adam can’t hear what they’re saying he can guess. Adam has always been a problem, for as long as he can remember; he’s something to be handled, a particularly bad mistake that no one can seem to make go away. 

“Okay,” Ronan says, as they reenter the main room. Adam’s hands are trembling, picking at themselves, but he forces himself to look up at Ronan and Gansey. “Blue’s coming over now. She’s not going to call the cops on you.” 

“Okay.” Adam thinks he must look as old as them, with how tired he feels. 

“So, this was your pimp, right?” Ronan asks, and Adam just clenches his jaw. 

“Ronan,” Gansey chastises, but Adam knows what this is turning into. “Okay. Uh, we know your first name is Adam. Do you have a last name?”

“Do you?” Adam asks. 

“Fuck, man, Gansey is his last name. His mom’s a fucking senator. He just prefers Gansey to Richard Campbell Gansey the Third,” Ronan explains. “Mine’s Lynch. Blue’s is Sargent.”

“I don’t have one,” Adam answers. He doesn’t give a shit about lying, not when if they decide to dig into his last name they’re going to find a lot of shit. 

Ronan snorts. “Yeah, okay. Look, if you want to be fucking shady and not tell us something, just say that. Don’t fucking lie.” 

“Like you’ve never lied,” Adam shoots back. 

“I don’t lie.” Ronan says it with such a quiet ferocity that Adam might just believe him.

“He doesn’t,” Gansey adds. “Okay, how old are you, Adam?” 

“Nineteen,” Adam lies, looks Ronan right in the face as he does it. 

“Jesus fuck,” Ronan answers, before he chews at the leather bands he wears on his wrists. “Will you stop lying?”

“You can’t prove I’m not telling the truth,” Adam responds, voice as steely as he can manage. His ribs ache, and the anxiety grappling with his chest isn’t helping anything at all. 

“Okay. Uh, Adam, are you… do you…” Gansey is fumbling over his words. 

“I mean, Ronan isn’t wrong,” Adam responds, putting the poor fucker out of his misery. 

“Oh, so we don’t lie about that?” Ronan is looking at Adam like he’s a puzzle, like if he looks hard enough and long enough he can decipher everything that Adam doesn’t want them to do.

“You watch the same fucking car drop me off every time,” Adam says, voice dry. “I’m not stupid.” 

That’s all the information Adam gives up. He finds out that Ronan is rich, just lives here because he can, that he owns a bar and bartends it himself half the time. Gansey is a law student. 

And then Blue, the angry nurse, is there, lugging a bag with her. She kisses Gansey on the cheek, but then she turns to the two men and just says,

“Out.” 

“The fuck, Maggot?” Ronan asks, but Gansey pulls him out of the room by his arm. Blue sits down next to Adam and Adam is more nervous than he’s been the entire time. 

“He calls you Maggot?” Adam asks, as Blue unzips the bag. He wants to avoid whatever the fuck is happening. 

“Yeah, he’s an asshat,” Blue responds. “Okay, so what happened?” 

“Got hit,” Adam responds. “He was pissed.” 

“Where? Just the face?” Blue asks. “All this looks like bad bruising, but there’s nothing too terrible. Nothing that split bad enough to need stitches.” 

“Uh, my ribs a bit, too.” Adam winces a little bit. “I think it’s just bruising though.” 

“Can I take a look?” Blue makes quick work of assessing the damage, taping some cuts together and agreeing with Adam’s diagnosis on his ribs. 

“Okay, before I release the kraken,” Blue says, pulling a bottle of ibuprofen out of her bag. “I would say take it now, but if you haven’t eaten it might upset your stomach.”

“I’m fine,” Adam says, swallows the pills dry. 

“We should talk, Adam. I get why you’re keeping secrets, but I’ve seen the aftermaths of situations like this,” Blue starts. She sees Adam tense, like an animal caught in the headlights of a car going too fast to stop. “I’m not going to force you, but I am going to help you. You don’t have a say in that.” 

“I promise, it’s not as bad as—” 

“Please, Adam, just _listen_. There has to be someone… your parents?” Blue’s eyes are impossibly gentle. She’s beautiful, but not in a way that feels tangible to Adam. She’s not something that’s ever an option for Adam. The darkest parts of Adam whisper in Dave’s voice that all Adam’s meant for is to be a body for someone richer than him to fuck. 

“They’re not going to help with this. They need the money and they don’t care how they get it as long as they get it,” Adam admits, voice cracking. 

“Okay. Do you have any money of your own? Anywhere else you could go, somewhere safe?” Blue asks, eyes searching Adam. Adam just shakes his head. “We’ll figure this out, Adam. I know you’re scared, but we can make sure you’re safe. Do you have somewhere to stay tonight?” 

Adam refuses the help, but he sleeps on Ronan’s couch that night, and Blue counts it as progress.

:: ::

After they send Adam off the next morning, Blue and Gansey and Ronan sit on the couch.

“We need to do something,” Gansey says. “He can’t be older than fifteen.” 

“I think he’s about sixteen,” Blue corrects. “He just looks younger because he’s so damn skinny.” 

“Did he tell you anything?” Ronan asks. There are dark circles under his eyes. “I didn’t hear yelling.” 

“Not much. It does sound like his parents wouldn’t be helpful,” Blue explains. “I don’t think they know what Adam is doing but I don’t think they care.” 

“Any information on his… employer?” Gansey asks. Blue just bites her lip. 

“Nothing. Not even a first name,” she admits. “Look, we have to do _something_. This is so fucked up.” 

“He clearly doesn’t want help,” Ronan says, chews at his wristbands. “I don’t know what he can do.”

“If he comes into the ER again looking that bad again, I’ll involve CPS,” Blue says without missing a beat. 

“He would fucking hate you,” Ronan says. “He’s clearly scared of someone. You really think sticking him in the system is going to fix that?”

“Yes,” Blue says bluntly. “Someone is prostituting him, Lynch, it can’t get much fucking worse.”

“Statistically, it’s his pimp he’s most likely to be scared of,” Gansey admits. “If they found out Adam even talked to a social worker or agent, they might react violently.” 

“Then we make sure the fucker is behind bars,” Blue shoots back. 

“We can’t guarantee any of that. Look, Adam is a fucking flight risk. If we push too hard, he’s just going to disappear,” Ronan says. “It fucking sucks. I just want to rip that asshole out of his car and beat the shit out of him, next time he drops Adam.”

“Blue, is there anything we can do in the meantime?” Gansey asks. “I know it’s a longshot, but I’ll keep my eyes and ears open at the DA’s office.” 

“Keep an eye out. Try to talk to him, detangle him from this guy a little bit. He might be more open to leaving if he knows he’s not going to be alone.” 

“I’ll bash the fucker’s face in.” That’s as close to agreement as they’re going to get from Ronan. It’s a shit plan, but it’s there.

:: ::

Adam doesn’t disappear. He and Ronan will get coffee in the afternoon, hands clutched around cheap styrofoam. Ronan tries to pay, but it isn’t often that Adam will allow it. It’s a worse sign if he does, because it mean he either doesn’t have the dollar and ten cents required, or he’s too fucking tired to argue. Ronan realizes quickly how deep Adam’s exhaustion runs.

It’s worse on the days that Ronan can see dark bruises left by rough teeth, when Adam’s face and arms and wrists are bruised to hell. 

He hasn’t made another trip to the ER. He’ll let Blue bandage him up in the safety of Ronan’s apartment, he’ll show up at Ronan’s door at three a.m. asking to sleep there for the night, but they haven’t got any farther than they were months ago. 

Adam is smart. Gansey is still trying to figure out where exactly Adam’s formal education ended, but he’s smart enough to not give up a grain of information unless he’s completely sure it’s untraceable. Right now their best guess is either sixth or seventh grade, and thinking about it too much makes Ronan want to punch a fucking wall.

Ronan feels so fucking helpless right now. 

The entire right half of Adam’s face is what looks like one giant bruise. It covers more than just his eye, swollen through the cheekbone, almost to his jawline. He had shown up at Ronan’s apartment at five that morning, legs shaking, and Ronan had barely gotten him to the couch before he was asleep. 

It’s two p.m. now, and they’re sitting in a shitty park drinking their shitty coffee.

“Dunno how the geese don’t freeze,” Adam says, rubs his hands together. Ronan watches his breath curl away from him, limbs shaking just a little bit in his shitty coat. “It’s so fucking cold.” 

“Want my coat?” Ronan asks. Adam just shoots him a glare. “So, man, the fuck happened last night?” It’s rare that Ronan will try to have this conversation. 

Adam is not in the fucking mood for it.

“Nothing,” Adam says. “Customer got rough. M’ boss got rougher.” 

“Why do you do it?” Ronan’s voice isn’t strong. It’s barely audible. “He doesn’t care how you get the money.” 

“There’s no way I could make that much money working legit. And I don’t have any of the paperwork.” Adam’s leg kicks out at the snow, hand playing with the chipping paint on the bench. 

“Look, man, you know if you wanted out, we’d all help you. We’d make sure you were safe,” Ronan tries, and it sounds wrong coming out of his mouth. He is just sick of seeing Adam stand outside, shivering, only to get into whatever random car wants him. He’s sick of when Adam comes back hurting, or just fucking gone. 

There’s only so much comfort Ronan can give. 

“You don’t fucking know what’s going on.” Adam’s jaw is clenched. “I’m not having this fucking argument again. Not with you, not with Gansey.” 

“Do you even have a plan, Adam?” Ronan hates that his volume raises to match Adam’s. “Or are you just going to do this until your pimp finally fucking murders you?” That’s the last straw, the spark that lights the fire, the wrong thing to say.

“You think I _want_ this?” Adam’s voice cracks. “Fuck you, Lynch.” 

“Well, you seem to be doing fuck all to get away from it,” Ronan spits back. “Blue has told you, fuck that I have told you over and over and over that there are other options.” 

“They aren’t options.” Adam’s voice is cold. “You don’t know him.”

“Because you won’t tell us shit,” Ronan says. “If you just tell us what the monster is, then we know what we’re up against. No one has forced you to do shit that you’re not comfortable with yet, right? We’re not trying to own you, or whatever fucked up idea you’ve got in your head.” 

“This is already dangerous. If he thinks you’re a friend, not business, I’m in deep shit,” Adam says. 

“He thinks I’m _business_?” Ronan sounds like rusted nails. “Fuck you, Adam.” 

“It was the only way.” Adam isn’t backing down. Ronan feels anger rip through his stomach. 

“It wasn’t. I would never,” Ronan says, can’t seem to finish the sentence. 

“He can’t know that,” is all Adam says. 

“Maybe that’s what you want. Would that solve all the problems, if I fucking _paid_ you instead of whatever pervert picks you up in his car?” Ronan can’t bring himself to regret the words. 

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” Adam’s eyes are watery. “I don’t want fucking charity.” 

“Then what do you want, Adam? Because if you don’t want help and you don’t want money and you don’t want to stop all of this then what do you want?” Ronan is breathing hard, standing now. His coffee is forgotten on the ground, already cold. 

“I want to not be so fucking scared all the time. I want to not have to lie. I want to go to school. I want you to fucking trust me instead of just telling me it’s fucked up. I know it’s fucked up.” Adam’s coffee is spilling onto the sidewalk, but Adam is walking away. 

Ronan lets him.

:: ::

Ronan doesn’t see Adam the next day. Or the next week. By the fifth day, Ronan is checking newspapers and calling every fucking hospital, back of his eyelids filled with gruesome images of Adam dead in a dumpster, drowned in the river, shot in the face.

He doesn’t sleep. Gansey had yelled at him about respecting boundaries, Blue had yelled at him for driving away their best chance at helping him, and they’re not wrong. He can’t sleep without thinking about what might be happening to Adam, what might be his fault.

:: ::

Adam is numb.

He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care what Dave does, doesn’t care if his face hurts or his ass hurts or what is said to him or where they touch him or what Dave does to him after the rest of them have had their fill. 

He is lonely. He is alone.

He is scared.

:: ::

It’s three weeks after Adam disappears that Ronan finally understands what is going on. He’s sitting on his own counter, eating mac and cheese out of the pot while Gansey talks about some case he’s been assigned to work at his internship with the DA’s office.

“Yeah, this perp—”

“David or whatever the fuck—” Ronan interrupts, mouth full of gooey noodles.

“Yeah, him. He’s doing awful stuff. Sex trafficking, gang violence, some pretty gruesome murders, but we can’t pin anything on him. Apparently they were pretty close this summer, ‘cause they managed to talk to one of the kids he’s been pimping out. But the kid wouldn’t fucking talk,” Gansey explains. 

Ronan’s heart stop beating in his chest. 

“How did they find him?” Ronan’s voice is shaking. He doesn’t want to believe it’s Adam. 

“A nurse had called the cops when the kid went into the ER. Ronan, are you okay?” Ronan is standing, now. 

“When was this? What the date?” Ronan’s voice is shaking.

“Early July. Maybe the second or third?” And then Ronan curses, a hand flying to his mouth. He’s crying. 

“Gansey, that was Adam. Blue called the cops.” Ronan watches as Gansey pieces it all together. 

“Oh, God, we have to get him out of there. Ronan, if it’s the same kid, he’s not just pimping him out, he’s—” But Gansey doesn’t get to finish. Ronan’s phone rings. 

It’s Blue. 

Adam is in the ER.

:: ::

Adam isn’t sure how he gets to the ER. He smells like the dumpster he slept behind, unable to pull himself off of the pavement to get a ride home.

He is so close to giving up. 

Everything seems so much harder. Adam hadn’t realized how much he needed some normal fucking human contact to feel like a person; his layers have been peeled and burned away until there’s nothing about him that’s _him_. He’s a body. He’s merchandise, ready to be bought and sold and traded and used and ruined. He thinks he has become the water. 

Adam Parrish is nothing. 

Adam doesn’t know what’s wrong, beyond the agony in his whole arm and the cuts the ring left across his cheek, still bleeding. He thinks, when he tried to pull away from the man, so rough and angry and ready to hurt, he pulled too hard. 

He cradles his arm to himself, sluggishly makes his way to the only fucking hospital he can get to. He prays Blue isn’t working. Prays that whatever nurse he gets plays fucking dumb, that the doctor doesn’t try to be a hero. 

Adam doesn’t even know if he’s worthy of being saved. His legs ache, lips and thighs and ass bruised. 

He sits in the waiting room, lies about his age and why he’s here and who he is. 

The nurse who calls him back isn’t Blue. Adam thinks he might be able to get out of this on luck alone, but then a miserable five steps before the triage room he sees her. 

Blue’s eyes go wide, and Adam knows he has one chance to stop this.

“Please, Blue—” Adam begs, words scraping his throat raw. He doesn’t know how bad he looks, but he knows it’s not good. Blue just shakes her head. When the nurse gets Adam on the triage bed, Blue instantly pulls her away. 

Adam is so tired. Dave is going to kill him, if he knows that Adam is here, that Blue’s calling CPS or the cops or whoever she thinks can remove Adam from all of this. That’s the thing. It’s not just picking Adam up off of the ground. He’s so fucking far that the roots have melded with his bones; he’s so fucking trapped that it’s going to hurt more to untangle them than to just let them be. 

Adam lets his shoulders slump, regrets it when the unbearable pain that shoots through his entire right side. Adam presses the gauze harder against his face, digs his nails into the cuts a little just to feel them burn. When Blue and the other nurse return, Blue is looking at Adam with a whole new kind of emotion in her eyes. 

“Adam Parrish,” she says, voice soft. 

“No, that’s not—” Adam starts, can feel his heartbeat in his ears and in his chest and just can’t deal with this. How does she know? How much does she know? Does she know everything? “I’m not, that’s not—”

“It’s okay,” Blue says, as she starts to help the other nurse clean Adam up. “I promise, if you just let them help, Adam—”

“Oh god, what have you done?” Adam tries to get up off the bed, but his legs aren’t working right, and he ends up doubled over, and it’s too easy for them to get Adam back up, to box him in. “Blue, you’ve fucked this so hard.” 

“Adam, relax,” Blue says. “Let us help you.” 

“I don’t need help.” But Adam chokes on the words, tears rising in his eyes and sliding down his dirty cheeks. He wants to lift a hand to swipe them away, to try to hide the tiderays rising within him, threatening to break through Adam’s ribs and fall onto the hospital floor. But he doesn’t have a hand to spare, and so they fall freely. It feels like the last thing he is able to surrender.

“Adam, I know this is hard and I know you hate me right now, but I promise I’m not doing this to make anything more difficult.” Blue takes the gauze from Adam’s cheek, forces his fractured and dull eyes to meet her own. “You do need help. You don’t want it, and that’s okay right now, but you need it.” 

But Blue can’t say more, can’t say that Ronan is definitely tearing up the waiting room with Gansey right now, talking to authorities. The doctor is there. He reduces Adam’s shoulder, stitches the three parallel gashes his client’s rings left on his cheek, wraps Adam’s sprained wrist, tells Adam a lot of bullshit about not moving his arm for at least a week. Everything hurts and Adam’s stomach is full of barbed wire, tearing and poking and bleeding. He doesn’t know what to do. 

Dave will kill him. It’s inevitable. 

Adam is lead away. It’s the same detective from the summer, but this time there’s someone on Adam’s side of the table. She says she’s with CPS. 

This is Adam’s last chance. Adam can’t take it. As much as he just wants it all to go away, to not have to worry about all the shit that is constantly eating his brain, he’s always been a survivalist. He doesn’t want to live, but not living isn’t an option. The only way he stays alive is if he stays quiet. 

He tells them some truths, to make the lies go down smoother: he lives with his uncle, to get CPS off of his back, he is sixteen years old, and someone did hurt him. But he lies: he doesn’t have a pimp, he isn’t a sex worker, he was mugged last night, and he’s safe. He crafts the better version of Adam Parrish. The cop shows him some more stuff that Dave has done, tries to get Adam to talk.

Again, he gives Adam his card. Adam keeps it. 

By the time he’s back in the waiting room, his eyes are dry. He’s so fucking tired. 

Ronan Lynch is there. So is Gansey. They’re all looking at him like he’s a puppy they found out in the rain. That’s not fucking far from the truth, and it sends bile up Adam’s throat, just a little. 

Adam tries to make it past him, makes it out the door, but Ronan follows. He’s barely turned a corner when there’s a hand on his good shoulder and Ronan is turning him around. 

“What the fuck, Adam?” Ronan asks. Adam realizes that Ronan probably doesn’t look much better than he does; the circles under his eyes are as dark as the bruises on Adam’s, eyes tired and full of hurt. “Why?”

“Why what?” Adam responds, voice hollow. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“Why did you disappear?” Ronan’s voice is harsh. He rubs a hand over the back of his shorn head. “I was fucking terrified, man. I thought you were dead in a dumpster or something.”

“Things got rough with my employer,” Adam says carefully. “He didn’t want me over there.”

“Cut the shit, Adam.” Ronan’s voice is harsh, cracking under the strain. “We _know_. God, why couldn’t you have just fucking talked to the police?”

“It’s not that fucking simple,” Adam responds, voice rising. “If he even knew I was talking to them, I’m dead.” 

“Not if you let them help. Adam, they can keep him the fuck away from you,” Ronan says, throwing his hands in the air. 

“No they can’t! You don’t know what he’s done, what he can do. He doesn’t give a fuck about restraining orders or whatever they would have done. I’m just trying to stay alive.” Adam is crying again, tears hot going down his face. “This doesn’t get better for me. I either try to stay alive or I do something and he kills me for it.” 

“I don’t fucking understand how you don’t see how bad it is? If you don’t do something to, he will, or fuck that a _client_ will accidentally kill you.” Ronan’s voice is a roar. Adam backs away, instinct overriding his desire to not fucking let Ronan talk to him like this.

“It’s not that easy,” Adam croaks out. “I… it’s still manageable. He didn’t do this,” Adam explains. 

“So it’s okay, then? God, you know I thought that, wherever the fuck you lived, there was at least someone else looking out for you,” Ronan admits. “Adam, you can’t stay with him.”

“I have nowhere else to go,” Adam says, voice almost too hoarse to be heard. He looks wrecked. “I can’t go home. I don’t have enough money to get far enough away from him.” 

“He’s fucking pimping you out! You tell one fucking reasonable adult that—”

“What about my parents? I can’t go back there and if he decides—”

“He doesn’t get a choice, he’s—”

“What the fuck do I say? Yeah, my mom sent me away because my dad lost his job and she was sick of watching him beat the shit out of me? That she sent me to his _brother_ , because they needed money and they knew what he did? That I’ve let my own fucking uncle pimp me out since I was twelve?” Adam’s breathing hard. He doesn’t care that the tears are getting on his own shirt, that they’re coming too hard for him to be able to see properly. “I’ve let them do that to me. No one would fucking believe that I didn’t want it now. It’s too late.”

“It’s not.” Ronan’s voice is strong, but impossibly gentle. “We can go back in there. You can talk to them. They can get you out, and you’re not going to be hurt and you’re not going to be in trouble. This isn’t the only option.” His hand goes back to Adam’s good shoulder. “Adam, you can’t stay with him.”

“I don’t know what else to do.” Adam is crying harder now. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. I thought she was sending me here to go to school.” 

“This isn’t your fault, okay?” Ronan wraps his arms around Adam as gently as he can. 

“I should… I should go,” Adam gets out. “Oh god. Oh fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.” He’s pacing now, hand running through his hair. He looks out to the parking lot, freezes. “Oh god.” It’s a sob.

“Adam, what’s going on?” Ronan asks, steps forward. Adam just swallows violently, shakes his head, shakes out his good hand, clenches it just to move it back to his side. He looks trapped, terrified, an animal staring down the barrel of a gun. 

“I have to go.” Adam barely gasps out the words, before he’s stumbling off. Ronan searches the parking lot, wondering if there was something there to send Adam’s constant low-grade anxiety so suddenly spiraling like that. 

There’s a grey car, the same one Ronan has seen drop Adam off at the corner across from his apartment. 

Ronan is running in the direction Adam went, one hand dialing Blue. He can’t see Adam around the corner, doesn’t stop running.

“Blue, send the fucking cops out down Rolland Ave, east. His uncle’s fucking here. I’m trying to find him,” Ronan gets out, hangs up because he can see them now. Adam is on the ground, hand up trying to shield himself from something that Ronan can’t see. 

“Where you been, bitch? I wanna know,” David Parrish says, and Adam’s lip trembles as he tries to scoot backwards. “Who the fuck did you talk to? I saw the fucking cop cars.”

“I didn’t tell them anything,” Adam gasps out. “I swear, I swear I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re lying.” That’s the last thing Ronan hears, still too many steps away to stop anything, before there’s a flash of metal and Adam lets out a gasp. Ronan can’t see where there’s blood, if there’s blood, because he’s knocking the bastard to the side, knife clanking against the pavement. It isn’t even a contest, Ronan has him pinned, has punched him in the face before he’s even had time to react. He can hear Adam’s labored breathing, 

Not quickly enough, there are cops dragging Ronan off of Parrish, are slamming the bastard’s face into the concrete and then they’re surrounding Adam. 

“What’s happening?” Ronan asks, but the cops won’t let him through. There are nurses and a stretcher and Blue just looks at Adam before she’s rushing Adam off. There are hands pressing down somewhere low on his chest; Ronan doesn’t know where he was hit or how deep it was or if it hit something and oh god what has happened?

Ronan does his best to answer the cop’s questions, but he can only fill in the information they already know and what he saw and heard. 

He and Gansey end up in a waiting room on some surgical floor. There’s a few cops lingering, and the CPS agent is back. 

Ronan tells her in no uncertain terms that his parents aren’t an option. He says he’s got a spare room, that Adam is going to want to be emancipated. 

She doesn’t like that idea. 

She keeps saying the word trauma, that Adam’s gone through too much _trauma_ to be on his own, that someone needs to make sure he’s processing his _trauma_ , and honestly Ronan kind of wants to see her try to have this conversation with Adam. 

But part of him knows there’s some truth to what she’s saying.

:: ::

Adam doesn’t know if he’s lost time, but he knows his eyes open to a hallway of the hospital. He sees Blue’s face above his, and he’s too tired to move his head, but there’s an agonizing pressure on his stomach.

The last thing he remembers is—

“Adam, you’re safe, you’re okay,” Blue says, as Adam’s breath hitches. He feels so cold. “You’re okay.” 

Adam can’t seem to make a sound. His breath is too short, his brain too slow. 

“Just relax, okay? We’re going to get this closed up—”

Adam blacks out.

:: ::

Adam doesn’t realize he’s awake, this time. He hears a wave of sounds, a muffled beeping, the sound of someone breathing. A while later, he can feel an ache in his stomach, a heaviness in his bones, a tightness in his face, a dull pain in his shoulder. It starts to wash away into something softer.

Adam realizes his eyes are closed. He doesn’t know if he wants to open them. Who is he going to see? Where is he? 

The beeping is faster, now, and Adam’s fear slams his eyes open before he can stop himself. 

“Hey, it’s okay.” Adam’s vision is blurring, but he thinks that’s Ronan by his side, covering his hand with his own. “Easy. There you go.” When Adam’s eyesight clears, he sees that it is Ronan in the dark room, knuckles scraped raw and eyes deep set with exhaustion. 

“Ronan,” he croaks out, winces at the pain in his stomach. “Whas’ the time?”

“Hey. It’s a little past midnight.” Ronan’s voice is soft. “How are you feeling?”

“Hurts,” Adam says, and he lets his eyes wander. His arm is in a sling, resting against his chest, and he can’t see beneath the hospital gown but there’s a tightness in his stomach that mirrors the tightness across his cheek. “Is he gone?”

“He’s in jail,” Ronan says. “He’s not going to come near you again. I should get your doctor.” 

Adam lets out a shaky breath. 

“Ronan?” He hates how weak his voice sounds, hates that he can barely look Ronan in the face right now. All of his dirty laundry, every horrid detail about what he’s done the last four years, it’s going to come out. Everyone is going to have to know everything that Dave did to him, everything he made him do. There’s no coming back from that. There’s so much he needs to worry about. 

“Yeah?” Ronan asks, moving as close to Adam as he dares. “Adam, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t… what happens now?” Adam has never thought this far. He’s always just assumed that Dave was going to kill him, that his future was the bottom of a river or a dumpster somewhere. That would almost be easier. There’s so much that’s always been out of his control. “I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“Right now, you work on getting better.” Ronan’s voice is firm. “He got you pretty good across your stomach, but they don’t think it hit anything major.”

“Ronan, I—” There’s so much anxiety welling up in Adam’s chest that he doesn’t know what to do. “I’m so scared.” 

“That’s okay.” Ronan squeezes Adam’s hand. “I don’t know what you’re going through, but it’s okay that you’re worried. But I promise, we’re sorting it out.” 

“I don’t… I can’t…” There’s too much, inside of Adam’s chest, pressing his empty lungs flat up against his ribs. There’s no room for anything that he’s feeling, anxiety mixing with fear mixing with anger and, impossibly, hope. 

“Hey. All of that’s a while off. You should rest,” Ronan says, voice forcibly light. He doesn’t want to tell Adam about the clusterfuck that’s on the other side of this door, because he’s so fucking scared about what’s going to happen. Adam is sixteen years old and he needs a guardian, and everyone is throwing around the term group home and it terrifies him. 

Adam is scared. Even while hurting and tired and on more medication than Ronan can name, Adam has his shit together to know that this is far from over. He still has to talk to the police, still has to face a future that’s so uncertain, after all that has already happened. 

“I’m scared.” Adam sounds more like a kid than Ronan has ever heard him. “I’m so scared, Ronan.” 

And just like that, Ronan can’t think beyond what’s right in front of him. He can’t worry about trials and custody and trying to piece a world together in which Adam Parrish can be happy when he’s right in front of him, vulnerable and on the verge of collapse. 

He can’t even give the kid a hug. He doesn’t want to initiate any contact, has always let Adam let him know what he needs. He’s so scared of making it all worse, right now. 

Adam extends a hand. 

Ronan grabs it, squeezes it as tight as he can, rubs circles on the space between Adam’s thumb and first finger. “It’s okay. We got you.” It’s a promise. 

“I’m so tired.” 

Ronan wants to play pretend. He wants to imagine a future where Adam is eighteen, twenty, twenty-four. He wants to imagine an Adam whose smile doesn’t seem like the last defense before complete breakdown. He wants to imagine an Adam who is happy, an Adam who is safe, an Adam without anxiety clawing his insides bloody. 

He thinks of easy mornings in the park, of cheap coffee and dew on the ground. He thinks of flowers that bloom too early, freeze themselves in the winter. He thinks of standing chest-deep in the ocean, the feeling of wave after wave crashing against his ribs, a new baptism with each tideray. 

For better or worse, something has changed for Adam. God, it has to be better. 

It has to be better than this.

**Author's Note:**

> go ahead and yell at me in the comments section. i'm sorry i'm so bad at endings.
> 
> also now that it's over if u want the darker version, listen to little lady by ed sheeran/mikill pane


End file.
